


love magic™

by fulmiinata



Category: Free!
Genre: Demigod AU, First Kiss, M/M, Sirens, kisses that break spells
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-17
Updated: 2014-11-17
Packaged: 2018-02-23 08:19:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2540825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fulmiinata/pseuds/fulmiinata
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He wants Makoto to hold him in those strong arms of his, toned and carved from archery experience. Although most of the time he's like a big puppy too wobbly on his feet (read: clumsy), Rin knows Makoto can be gentle, delicate. </p><p>Of course, it's not like Rin Has A Crush on Makoto, or anything."</p>
            </blockquote>





	love magic™

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pinkstarpirate](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinkstarpirate/gifts).



> the prompt, I believe, went something like:
> 
> "I just really want Rin to give Mako his first kiss, okay?"
> 
> I really really hope you enjoy this pinkstarpirate! Hopefully you have as much fun reading it as I did writing it ♡♡♡

Rin knows they’re in trouble the instant his heart starts to thrum.

Granted, they were technically in trouble from the start, when that stupid centaur, Sasabe something-or-other, decided it was a good idea to put Nagisa “Stick Some Dynamite In It” Hazuki, Rei “Big Cheeks” Ryugazaki, Sousuke “Dead People Are More Fun Than You and I Would Know” Yamazaki, Makoto “Fried Chicken” Tachibana and Rin “I Already Know Why You’re Making Fun of Me” Matsuoka on the same quest. Yes, he understands that they’re all technically cabin leaders and more than capable of fighting off any danger as well as having an important relationship with missing nereid Haru, but him and all these other maniacs are absolutely the definition of “ragtag.”

Rin is supposed to be the quest’s designated leader, although no one else seems to think so, and he has definitely had enough of Big Cheeks’ constant interference or disagreement with his plans. If he hears, “as a child of Athena” one more goddamn time...

Plus, Nagisa keeps “accidentally” setting things on fire. It would be more irritating if not for the fact that he’s the only one on the ship qualified to build machines. Sousuke is tolerable, considering he’s Rin’s best friend, which a lot of people seem to think is really weird (“Isn’t that redhead guy from the Aphrodite cabin? Why’s he hanging out with a child of Hades?”), but the whole skeleton war/summoning the dead thing he has going on is all kinds of creepy. He needs to stop.

Makoto, in Rin’s humble opinion, is the least problematic member of this team. He’s not boisterous or haughty or gloomy, he does what he’s told and is overall a calming presence. Being around Makoto is comforting, and not just because he literally looks like the sun is woven into his eyes (having Apollo as your father does that, it seems)—he just has this quality, this aura about him and it leaves Rin feeling like he's been wrapped up in a warm blanket and given a mug of hot chocolate. He could spend hours talking to Makoto, listening to the lilt in his voice when he teases, the candied syllables spilling from his mouth.

He wants Makoto to hold him in those strong arms of his, toned and carved from archery experience. Although most of the time he's like a big puppy too wobbly on his feet (read: clumsy), Rin knows Makoto can be gentle, delicate. Would he be gentle with Rin? 

Of course, it's not like Rin Has A Crush on Makoto, or anything. Even if he did—which he doesn't—Rin wouldn't even know what to _do_ with those feelings. It's the worst kind of irony, a son of Aphrodite being clueless with love. He knows that with a charming smile and just the right kind of look Rin can make Makoto fall head over heels for him, but he's vowed to not use any kind of magic on him. If Rin somehow, by some miracle, gets Makoto to like him back, he wants it to be because of Rin Matsuoka, not because of Rin Matsuoka's Love Magic™.

His attempts have been grossly unsuccessful, but you know how the saying goes: "Sixteenth time's the charm!"

In fact, Rin is plotting scheme number seventeen when an especially ominous feeling settles over him. It seems so wrong, given that it's a sunny, breezy day in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, but he can't shake that uneasiness spreading through his body.

The source behind his unease is soon discovered, however, when music starts to reverberate through his chest. It's making his heart thrum, the downy hairs at the back of his neck standing up.

"Shit." He recognizes this kind of sound. Sirens.

Rin rushes below deck to warn the others to cover their ears, stuff cotton in them, something to create a barrier between them and the siren's singing. He finds Nagisa tinkering with an old clock, while Rei reads a book about an undoubtedly boring subject and Sousuke lazes on the couch.

"Is there something wrong, Rin-chan?" Nagisa asks, looking up from the gutted time piece. A small bit of grease streaks across his nose.

"Cover your ears. Now." says the redhead, opening up a drawer and rifling through it to find maybe a pair of headphones or ear muffs inside. "There’s sirens outside."

Nagisa nods and pulls out some noise canceling headphones from the pocket of his magic overalls. He gives a pair to Rei, then settles a third pair over Sousuke's ears without resistance. He offers some to Rin.

"I don't need them. Seduction magic doesn't work on me."

The blond shrugs, before taking a quick look around the cabin of the ship. "Um, Rin-chan?"

"What."

"Where's Mako-chan?"

Rin freezes, stomach curling in the worst way.

Sousuke grunts, looking at Rin with lazy teal eyes. He curls himself further into the couch and sighs out of his nose. "Don't tell me you left KFC above deck by himself."

Uh, that's _exactly_ what Rin did. "Stay down here." Rin says, dashing to the stairs.

He completely forgot Makoto was up top with him. He'd been so focused on making sure they were sailing in the right direction that, when Makoto didn't appear in his immediate line of sight, he just assumed the brunet was with the other three. He left him all alone, completely defenseless against the sirens' crooning.

By the time he's reached the top of the stairs, bursting through the heavy wooden door and running to the side of the ship, Makoto is gone. Frantically Rin's eyes dart around the nearby water, desperate to glimpse a pair of green eyes or bronze skin.

"Makoto!" he calls, from his diaphragm. "Makoto!"

He hears a cough come from between the waves, almost muffled by the warbling stuffed in Rin's ears. Immediately his attention is drawn towards the source, and for just a second he sees a head of brown sugar hair bobbing about before the sea swallows it up.

"Makoto!" Rin shouts once more as he climbs over the railing and dives straight in. The water's freezing, even in the summer, but the redhead pushes past the shock and forces himself to swim.

Constantly racing against nereids (specifically, Haru) has proved beneficial, because it isn't long before Rin finally snags Makoto's thick arm in his grasp. He's definitely weak, but the glazed over look in his eyes suggests he's still under the spell of that cursed song.

"Makoto, can you hear me?" The questions comes out a little more breathlessly than Rin would like, but the safety of one of his friends is more important than how worried he sounds.

Like the flipping of a light switch, Makoto jerks to consciousness. He starts to flail wildly in the water, panic rising in his eyes. He tries to tear away from Rin. "Let me go! I need to find them, they're calling for me!" the brunet shouts.

"Please, Rin! I need—they're... they're calling for me Rin I have to find them Rin—Rin they need me—" In between mouthfuls of seawater Makoto is blathering incoherently, the song driving him mad. When the other boy refuses to let go he looks at him with an absolutely anguished expression, as if saying _"I thought you were my friend, why won't you let me have this?"_

With his chest to the taller teen's back, Rin hooks his arms beneath Makoto's and over his shoulders. He cranes his neck to look behind them, and starts to kick as powerfully as he can.

"No! No!" Makoto is throwing his arms forward, still trying to swim to an inevitable death. "Let me go! Rin!"

A sharp pain shoots through Rin's cheek just then; Makoto's punched him right along the bone. It hurts like a bitch—nice as that boy is, he is _not_ someone you wanna get in a fight with—and already the redhead can tell it's going to leave a nasty bruise, but he doesn't let go. Makoto doesn't actually know what's going on, he isn't aware of what his body is doing, and Rin isn't about to let him drown in the middle of the ocean. They still have to find Haru, plus Rin is not the type of person to return from a quest with less people than he left with.

"Listen to me Makoto!" he bawls over the other teen's wailing. "I'm not letting you get killed, so you better stop fighting!"

"They won't kill me!" Makoto insists. "They love me! The sirens love me—that's why they're singing for me—"

"They don't love you!" Rin is ready to cry, he has no idea how to snap Makoto out of it. What to do when someone falls under a siren's spell isn't part of the standard CPR/First-Aid course, although it should be. "They want to kill you! They are trying to kill you Makoto because they don't love you! But _I_ do! That's why I'm not letting go of you!"

Rin doesn't even realize what he's just said. He doesn't stop to think or take it back because he's too worried about Makoto right now, Makoto who is still fighting him and his rescue attempt, Makoto who is going crazy because of the sirens.

An especially choked sob reaches Rin's ears, cutting deeper than any song.

"Please..."

Uncurling his arms from around Makoto's frame, Rin just grabs him by the shoulders and whips him around. He takes in Makoto's deranged eyes and grief-stricken face, the heaving of his chest under the water and the hair plastered to his forehead, then offers a small prayer to his mom of _"This better work,_ " before going in and planting his lips against the other boy's own.

He knows he swore against love magic when it came to Makoto, but just a little, enough to overpower the song, can't hurt. He just needs Makoto to return to a more stable state of mind, or else they'll both drown.

Also, Rin imagined his first kiss with Makoto to take place under more ideal, romantic circumstances, but beggars can't really be choosers, can they?

When he feels Makoto's mouth, pressed into a tight line, relax and curve against Rin's, the redhead pulls away, reluctantly. He watches, relieved, as the light—that sunlight—returns to the edge of Makoto's iris, and all his anguish melts away, replaced instead by confusion.

"What... what's going on?" he asks, looking around and seeing nothing but big blue waves. "Why are we in the ocean? Dressed?"

Releasing a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding, Rin feels small tears beginning to prick at his eyelashes. Ah, it's probably just saltwater.

He tells Makoto about the sirens, about him jumping into the ocean and trying to swim to them. He tells him sorry, so many times, for leaving him alone on deck, for neglecting his safety because if he hadn't, then this never would've happened. Makoto just smiles at Rin, saying it's okay, when he stops in the middle of his sentence.

"Um, wait a second." Color starts to pool in Makoto's cheeks. "Rin, did you... _kiss_ me?"

Alarms start going off in Rin's head, a scream erupting internally. A lurid shade of red, Rin averts his gaze to deny the claim vehemently.

"Pfft! _Me?_ Kiss _you?_ What—what even—haHA why would you—would you think _THAT?"_ he chuckles weakly, deflating at his weak denial. He still has his hands on Makoto's shoulders, and retracts them to paddle in the water and keep himself afloat. At this point, however, drowning seems like a kinder fate.

Makoto turns an even deeper red, impossibly so. Still treading water with his feet, his hands fly up to his mouth. "Rin! That! That was my first kiss!"

"It _what!"_ Rin's jaw drops, face burning so intensely it's a miracle the ocean hasn't evaporated around them. "It was _WHAT!"_ Fuck fuck fuck he's so fucked he’s so—oh gods oh fuck.

"I can't believe that was how I got my first kiss..." Makoto mumbles, looking somewhat devastated, much to Rin's chagrin.

Baring his teeth, Rin snaps, "Well I'm sorry it was so awful for you! I wasn't trying to save your life or anything!" He starts to turn around, ready to swim back to the ship and hide in his shame.

"Wait!" cries out Makoto, doggy paddling up next to him. He looks sheepish, small smile pulling at the corners of his lips. With his eyes firmly trained on the ripples in the water, he murmurs, "I never said I didn't like it. I didn't mean to make it sound like it was awful or I hated it."

Gods, Rin's heart is just squeezing itself into oblivion, Makoto is so fucking _cute._ He sighs, absolutely defeated.

"So, you liked it?"

Makoto shrugs, still bashful. "I'm sure it would've been really nice, had I been lucid."

Rin raises an eyebrow, smirk strung along his mouth. "Oh yeah?" He makes sure to face Makoto again, settling his hands along the curve of his neck and pulling him in closer. "Well, you're lucid _now,_ aren't you? So," With his lips right next to the brunet's ears, Rin whispers,

"Let me show you just how nice my kisses can be."

**Author's Note:**

> the reason Makoto is called fried chicken is because he's a big chicken and once Nagisa set him on fire that's all you need to know
> 
>  
> 
> [tumblr](http://fulmiinata.tumblr.com)


End file.
